SOURCE: Frye, Northrop. “The World as Music and Idea in Wagner's Parsifal.” Carleton Germanic Papers 12 (1984): 37-49.

In the following essay, Frye surveys the literary and mythological sources of Wagner's opera Parsifal, and associates the work's theme and music with the concepts of Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy.

On the subject of Wagner I have to speak as a pure outsider. I am interested in Wagner as a creative figure with an immense cultural influence, but I have never been to Bayreuth: I have seen very few Wagner operas, and the whole spectacular side of Wagner, the spears that freeze over the heads of the virtuous, the swans and doves and dragons and other ambulatory fauna, has always been of minor interest to me. In fact I have reservations about the genre itself. I once saw a work of Monteverdi in which the singers performed offstage while the action on the...